Bears QB Josh McCown Might Not Play Football Next Season

Despite his stock rising after having a pretty good season as the Bears back up quarterback, Josh McCown is unsure if he will play in the NFL next season. His reason is simple. He’s tired of missing his family that lives in North Carolina while he plays in Chicago.

“It’s a year-to-year thing of how long is this going to be,” he said. “In our minds, when we commit to it, it’s for a year. So to be apart like this, it’s a tough deal. But it’s something everybody [in my family] talks about, including my daughter, my oldest, especially, just sitting with her, ‘Is all this OK? Are you cool with this?’ So she’s been great with it all.

“But for me, I know that there is a time coming where it’s going to get harder and harder. I kind of have a thought process in my mind of: I don’t know if I want to do this and let her get out of my house having done this the last four years where we live apart.”

Although he is terribly missing his family, it might be difficult to turn down the multi-million dollar deal that he will most likely be offered at the end of the season, by the Bears or another NFL team. In just five starts, McCown has completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 1,829 yards, 13 touchdowns and just one interception while leading the Bears to three victories and a chance to make the playoffs.

But even with the guarantee of financial security for him and his family’s future, McCown is still not sure if he is willing to make that commitment.

“There’s not enough money in the world to justify and make it feel OK to miss [his kids’] games and stuff like that,” McCown said. “It’s a process. It’s things that we think about, quite honestly, moving forward in my career in the direction, ‘Are we going to keep playing?’ All those things, because it’s a real question, because those things are hard.”